Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 14287
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Giffney , Noreen.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Racially queer: the Mongols in mid-thirteenth-century Eastern European propaganda
  • Source: Seeing Gender: Perspectives on Medieval Gender and Sexuality. Gender and Medieval Studies Conference, King's College, London, January 4-6, 2002.. 2002.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Conference Paper Abstract
  • Subject (See Also): Mongols, People Propaganda Queer Theory Race and Racism
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Eastern Europe
  • Century: 13
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  • Abstract: Following their devastation of the Rus’ principalities and Eastern Europe in 1236-42, the Mongols were subject to much hostile scrutiny in Western propaganda, when they were cited as ‘lawless Ishmaelites’, ‘accursed godless ones’, and ‘a host of shedders of Christian blood’. Feared as ‘armies of Antichrist’ and ‘nuncios of Satan’, the Mongol adversary was accused of eating human breasts, enacting multiple rapes, skewering babies on spears, before leaving Hungary ‘drowned in blood’. Vicious, egotistical monomaniac, they were reputedly willing to poison, mutilate, and plot even against their own families in their brutal quest for glory. This paper examines the representation of the Mongol enemy in three mid-thirteenth century propagandist sources: the Historia Tartarorum, Ystori Mongalorum, and Historia Pontificum Salonitanorum atque Spalatensium. Using queer discourse, the paper nterrogates Western racial(normativity), by showing how the three authors of the above texts other/outlaw/queer the Mongols through their use of racial, gender, sexual, and religious imagery. Exclusionary tactics were employed, not just to exclude the Mongols from (Western) civilisation, but also to re-affirm/cement/protect (notions of) that civilisation. I shall begin by revisiting the work of scholars, such as Gregory Guzman and Charles W. Connell, before undertaking a close textual analysis of the three sources. Thus, I shall illustrate the ways in which Queer Theory can add to our understanding, not only of the aforementioned texts, but also how its application provides us with insights into the Western psyche following the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century. [Reproduced by permission of the Gender and Medieval Studies Conference Organizers].
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  • Year of Publication: 2002.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: Not Available